The accrediting commission that scrutinizes California's 112 community colleges is requiring its evaluators to shred documents - from official reports to personal memos - as soon as they are "no longer necessary," a new policy that has raised suspicions among the commission's critics.

Faculty members in particular question the timing of the new policy. Their union recently complained to the U.S. Department of Education that the Accrediting Commission for Community and Junior Colleges has been excessively secretive and punitive in its oversight of troubled City College of San Francisco. They fear that encouraging the destruction of documents will make it harder to determine if their complaint is valid.

The accrediting commission says the new policy is designed to protect the privacy of colleges being evaluated, and that it will maintain all documents it is required to keep.

The Department of Education says it will look into whether the shredding policy is in compliance with federal rules about what must be kept and for how long. The inquiry will be included in the department's five-year review of the accrediting commission, now under way.

"We hope the Department of Education would find that this is a bad policy and would ask the commission to reverse it," Freitas said.

Krista Johns, the commission's vice president for policy and research, said the policy is intended to ensure that copies of confidential documents aren't floating around and that the agency "follows federal regulations scrupulously."

Johns added that the shredding policy isn't intended for the agency's paid staff but for its many volunteers: the 19 commissioners who vote on accreditation, committee members and the evaluators who visit colleges.

Death penalty

Based in Novato, the accrediting commission is one of six private, nonprofit agencies across the country that accredit two-year colleges and are overseen by the Department of Education. A college must be accredited to receive state funding and for its students to receive federal financial aid. Without it a college must close, as Compton College was forced to do in 2006.

The commission placed City College of San Francisco on its most severe sanction a year ago. Last month, the college learned that it will lose accreditation next summer because of extensive problems in governance and financial management. It is using the year to try to improve sufficiently to avoid closure.

The commission's harsh view of City College has infuriated faculty up and down the state. The California Federation of Teachers has long reviled the commission because of its dogged adherence to the myriad rules and regulations required for accreditation.

In April, the union filed a 300-page complaint about the commission with the Department of Education, saying the commission skirted its own rules in its approach to City College.

Policy angers union

The union was further angered in June, when the commissioners approved the policy requiring that all copies of confidential documents be shredded "at such time as continued possession of such documents is no longer necessary." Another approved option is to give the documents to the agency's president, a paid staff member.

Federal rules require accrediting agencies to "maintain complete and accurate records" of all documents and decisions related to their last accreditation review, which means at least six years.

Johns said the accrediting commission tells colleges to post many of those documents on their websites "so there's an understanding of the need for the materials to be available and transparent."

But faculty members are not convinced.

"The timing is mysterious," said Freitas, referring to the union's federal complaint about the commission. "Why pass this policy now?"